How a group of mothers uses drones to unearth the casualties of Mexico’s drug war

5/6/2019 – The Verge

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By Danielle Mackley

Roberto Carlos Casso Castro has been missing since December of 2011. Two days before Christmas, he called his mother, Dr. Rosalía Castro Toss, from his black Mazda. He and his partner were running errands, and yes, he told his mother, they were coming to the family holiday dinner the next day. He hung up. They both vanished.

A social studies teacher in Veracruz, Roberto Carlos is one of more than 40,000 people in Mexico who’ve disappeared since the 2006 outbreak of the country’s war on drugs. Most are victims of organized criminal groups and corrupt state authorities. They all leave behind desperate families — like Dr. Castro, who did what any parent would after the disappearance. She went searching for answers.

Dr. Castro visited countless authorities to demand an official investigation, none of whom have solved her son’s case. She tracked down witnesses herself, who told her that a truck had cut off her son’s car on the highway, and a group of heavily armed men had taken him and his partner away. She dug into abandoned fields rumored to be body dumps, but found nothing.

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Goldman plans expansion in Mexico with stock brokerage

4/26/2019 – Bloomberg

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By Sridhar Natarajan and Michelle Davis

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning to open a stock-trading brokerage in Mexico as it boosts its presence in Latin America’s second-largest economy.

The move will allow the firm to buy and sell stocks locally on behalf of clients, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new business line, still months away from being up and running, would give Goldman a bigger role in a market where some of its larger U.S. banking rivals already offer full-service stock brokerages A Goldman spokesman declined to comment on the plan.

Goldman already had a license to carry out fixed-income trades in Mexico, a business it’s been operating for the past few years, and plans to expand the platform into equities. A fully functional stock brokerage in Mexico could also bolster Goldman’s effort to handle more initial public offerings, with the ability to provide liquidity following the IPOs.

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Mexico’s crackdown forces migrants to more dangerous routes

4/26/2019 – Associated Press

By Sonia Perez and Mark Stevenson

José Vallecillo, a 41-year-old metalworker from Honduras, has a good-paying job welding steel freight containers waiting for him in the northern Mexico city of Monterrey, at a factory where he has worked before and the owner invited him to return.

But getting there from his home in Las Manos, has proved much harder than expected. Vallecillo, wife Sandra and 4-year-old daughter Brittany have endured a fruitless wait for visas, spent all their money on food and transportation, and escaped a police raid in which hundreds of migrants were arrested and hidden out in the countryside.

Still, he remains determined to make it to Monterrey one way or another.

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Migrant caravan detained in old factory, across from Texas

2/6/2019 – Associated Press

A caravan of 1,600 Central American migrants is surrounded by Mexican authorities in an old factory a short distance from Texas, where they hope to seek asylum but appear to have a faint chance.

The migrants arrived on buses Monday in Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas. The caravan is the first in recent months to head toward Texas instead of California.

President Donald Trump in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night accused Mexican cities of busing migrants to the border “to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection has bolstered staffing and conducted exercises with officers in riot gear, and the Defense Department said Wednesday that it would send 250 soldiers to Eagle Pass in a support capacity.

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Pemex to visit New York to meet investors, rating agencies

1/9/2019 – Reuters

MEXICO CITY – Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said it was staging a two-day work visit to New York with finance ministry officials on Wednesday and Thursday for dialogue with investors, financial analysts and rating agencies.

“This work visit will allow Petroleos Mexicanos to broaden channels of communication and to continue consolidating its presence in international financial markets,” Pemex said in a statement.

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Mexico’s new ‘common man’ president hits the ground running

12/3/2018 – Washington Post

(Marco Ugarte/Associated Press)

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s newly inaugurated president hit the ground running Monday with his pledge to govern as a common man and end decades of secrecy, heavy security and luxury enjoyed by past presidents.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sported slightly ruffled hair at his first early morning news conference as president, which started at 7 a.m. local time Monday.

“Isn’t that a change, that I am here, informing you?” Lopez Obrador asked reporters. While past presidents have very seldom held news conferences, Lopez Obrador promised to do so on a near-daily basis, much as he did when he was mayor of Mexico City from 2000-2005.

Lopez Obrador took his first airplane flight as president Sunday, boarding a commercial flight with the rest of the passengers. He has promised to sell the presidential jet as an austerity measure.

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Mexico’s President Elect Reaches Out to Business Elite

11/15/2018 – New York Times

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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has reached out to the country’s business elite, announcing the formation of a business advisory council including big names, especially in media.

Lopez Obrador said in a pre-recorded video circulated Thursday that he would meet with the council every couple months.

Lopez Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1, says Mexico needs the private sector’s support to generate jobs and grow the economy.

The leftist politician quickly moved to meet with business leaders to calm markets after his victory in July. Last month, Lopez Obrador roiled markets again by announcing the cancellation of the capital’s $13 billion airport project.

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RPT-Elon Musk’s ‘Teslaquila’ drink faces clash with Mexican tequila industry

11/14/2018 – Reuters

Reuters/Carlos Jasso

MEXICO CITY, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc co-founder Elon Musk and Mexico’s tequila producers could be headed for a collision after the agave-based drink’s industry group opposed the flamboyant billionaire’s efforts to trademark an alcoholic drink dubbed “Teslaquila.”

One of the world’s richest people and chief executive of Tesla, Musk is known for ambitious and cutting-edge projects ranging from auto electrification and rocket-building to high-speed transit tunnels.

Now it seems that Musk could be setting his sights on disrupting the multibillion-dollar tequila industry.

On Oct. 12, he tweeted “Teslaquila coming soon” and an accompanying “visual approximation” of a red and white label with the Tesla logo and a caption that stated “100 percent Puro de Agave.”

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Mexico’s incoming president halts an airport project, and pays a price

11/2/2018 – The Economist

Source: Reuters

IN 2002 VICENTE FOX, then president of Mexico, ended a honeymoon with foreign investors by giving in to machete-wielding peasants and dropping plans to build an airport near Mexico City. On October 29th history repeated itself when President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would halt construction of an airport after it was rejected in a vote involving barely 1% of the electorate. The move battered Mexico’s peso, which fell to its lowest level in four months, as well as its stockmarket and its bonds. Creditors, who had been hopeful on Mexico, turned hostile.

Mr López Obrador, a left-wing populist, had sought to reassure investors. Despite troubles in other emerging markets, investment in Mexico remained relatively buoyant; the optimism was bolstered by a new trade agreement with the United States. By putting a complex infrastructure project to a poorly conceived vote, the president-elect soured the mood.

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What is next for Mexico City airport after mega project axed?

10/18/2018 – Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A decision on Monday by Mexico’s next president to scrap a partly built $13 billion Mexico City airport has raised questions about the feasibility of his alternative plan, and consequences of the change.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who takes office Dec. 1, justified his move based on the results of an informal referendum that called for abandoning the current project.

The U-turn is the latest step in a long-running saga over how to solve growing congestion at the Mexico City airport, where 40 million passengers pass through a year.

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